The Secret Life of Pets 2 plays less like a film and more like a very long TV episode; the film contains an A, B, and C story following our main characters through stories that are loosely connected through some light thematic elements, culminating in an intersection at the climax. However, unlike many skilled TV shows, once all the plots converge, it feels forced and disjointed.
The film is a follow-up to 2016's smash hit, The Secret Life of Pets, which I did not see. I went into this film pretty cold and it seemed to work in isolation. I'm sure there are things I'm missing from the first film, but it doesn't seem like there's any reference to the past film's stories here. Which worked for me, but as I read the wikipedia entry on the first film's plot, I was mighty surprised how many relationships in this film that were established in the prior film which aren't even mentioned or brought up in this one.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Secret Life of Pets 2 hurdles through several plots, starting with Patton Oswalt-dog (replacing Louis C.K.) worrying about the arrival of a new human baby in his life. The opening flies through Oswalt-dog's owner's meeting with her new beau, and suddenly a baby is on the way. Then the baby is here and I thought "so this is gonna be an updated Lady and the Tramp sort of? Ok, sounds good," but before long Oswalt-dog learned to love the new baby and eventually becomes over protective of him to the point of chronic anxiety.
So that's the first five or so minutes of the film. The timeline slows down a bit for the remainder, with Oswalt-dog and his buddy Eric Stonestreet-dog traveling with their owners to a farm, where they meet Harrison Ford-dog. Meanwhile, Jenny Slate-dog has been tasked with watching Oswalt-dog's favorite toy, which she loses to a crazy cat lady's apartment. And Kevin Hart-bunny, who dreams of being a superhero, is enlisted by Tiffany Haddish-dog to save a siberian tiger imprisoned by a traveling circus.
All these various plots play out separately and are intercut fairly randomly. There's not much thematically that links these plots, besides I guess little animals overcoming fears. The more interesting parts take place on the farm, with Ford-dog criticizing Oswalt-dog's overbearing nature (perhaps a critique for parents today), while Slate-dog's misadventures with cats are amsuing. Hart-bunny's stuff is, for the most part, weird and grating.
What I find fascinating is the connection these characters shared in the first film seems completely forgotten in this one. Oswalt-dog's worry about being replaced is a plotline repeated wholesale from the first film, where he was worried about Stonestreet-dog replacing him. This prior conflict is never mentioned. And Hart-bunny was apparently a villain in the previous film, yet here is trying to be a superhero and never mentions the contrast between his prior life and current one. The film doesn't need to completely tie-in to the first one, and I admire it for mostly seeming to stand alone; but there also seems to be no reason here for this sequel to even be about the same set of animals. In Toy Story 2, you don't necessarily need to have seen the first, but the conflict and journey Woody and Buzz go through resonates and is present in the second film. In a pivotal moment late in that film, their prior relationship is brought up and is impactful. I feel the same could've been done here, its just that the filmmakers don't seem to care.
The film is essentially a fun cartoon. There are some moments that'll make you smile, but unless you're a kid, there's not much here that you'll find amusing. The film renders pets fairly well, from their habits and proclivities. However the film mostly feels like a bunch of random scenarios loosely connected. I'd say the whole movie is summed up in the final moments, after the story ends. Hart-bunny is left alone in his owner's room, and for no explicable reason I can surmise, launches into a sanitized parody of Desiigner's Panda. The kids in the theater cackled with glee, but I was left sitting there scratching my head at what the hell just happened.
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